Playtesting They Are, a local multiplayer audio game about temptation by Yoctobit. Photo: Fernando Colode Rivera — en Medialab-Prado.

Playtesting They Are, a local multiplayer audio game about temptation by Yoctobit. Photo: Fernando Colode Rivera — en Medialab-Prado.

Playtesting They Are, a local multiplayer audio game about temptation by Yoctobit. Photo: Fernando Colode Rivera — en Medialab-Prado.

In a world of shades, do you dare to open your eyes? Tiny creatures are trying to exhort you with right and wrong advices. Will you follow their hints, or listen to your inner voice?

They Are is a local multiplayer audio game of intuition and reflexes, about temptation, inspired on Hieronymus Bosch’s fancies and imagery.

Although on his time Bosch’s paintings were well accepted as expressions of devotion, later on, the spanish Inquisition ticked them as heretic works.

From an ucronic (1) contextual starting point in which Bosch and spanish Inqusition clashed to each other, we will set up an experience in which players must find the balance between yielding to temptation and chasing other player’s weaknesses.

Through audio landscapes and spoken-voice characters the game provides enough sources to the player to create some enigmatically beautiful imagery and enjoy some sort of arcane experience. The action is driven by audio cues that come up from the mobile to each player’s headphones, but the game actually happens in the physical space out of the devices, and mainly in the players’ minds.

Although each player plays against everyone else, every decision the player takes could affect himself positively or negatively in the long term, because in THEY ARE fate is reversible.

(1) Alternate history. Logical reconstruction, applied to history, taking for granted events that did not happen, but that would have happened.

THEY ARE is a local multiplayer, for android devices. The main mechanic of the game is finding the balance between yielding to the temptation and chasing other player’s weaknesses. This is mainly an audio game although is also a physical one. Soon you can listen to some soundscapes from different stages of the playful experience in this blog. STAY TUNED

The winner will be determine by an international jury consisting of five member related with the indie games scene, such as Brandon Boyer, chairman of the Independent Games Festival and founder of video game culture site Venus Patrol (USA), Ed Key indie developer of games such as Proteus (UK), Margaret Robertson, development director for Hide&Seek (UK), Zuraida Buter, co-director of the Global Game Jam and initiator of the first Dutch indie game showcase festival Indigo (the Netherlands) and Adriaan ’s-Gravesande (the Netherlands), artistic manager of Jheronimus Bosch 500 Foundation.

In a world of shades, do you dare to open your eyes? Tiny creatures are trying to exhort you with right and wrong advices. Will you follow their hints, or listen to your inner voice? THEY ARE is a party audio-game of intuition and reflexes about yielding or not to temptations, for 5 to 12 players.

Through audio landscapes and spoken-voice characters the game provides enough sources to the player to create some enigmatically beautiful imagery and enjoy some sort of arcane experience. The action is driven by audio cues that come up from the mobile to each player’s headphones, but the game actually happens in the physical space out of the devices, and mainly in the players’ minds.

Although each player plays against everyone else, every decision the player takes could affect himself positively or negatively in the long term, because in THEY ARE fate is reversible.